


to all the boys i've loved before

by pondscumms



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, F/F, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbian Kaede Akamatsu, Unrequited Love, i normally hc her as bi but ! i was in a rlly weird mood when i wrote this, itz very 'write what u know' and it shows lmfao (fuck), self discovery, u know. the usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-07-29 21:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20089315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pondscumms/pseuds/pondscumms
Summary: Kaede has had a few boyfriends, but no matter how much she loves spending time with them, she just doesn't want to kiss them.She wonders why.





	to all the boys i've loved before

**Author's Note:**

> @lesbians u ever look out at the world and realise its like 95% straight
> 
> content warning for internalized homophobia......itz not the 'graaaa gay people bad' kind u find in old fashioned catholic skools but like. the 'yea being gay is a-okay and all but ME? hahahaha i could never be gay' + some weird comphet feelingz + keeping it all inside bc ur so new to this part of ur identity that u dont wanna say anything yet
> 
> ANYWAY HERES WONDERWALL

It wasn't because she didn't love Shuichi. There were so many things about her shy boyfriend that Kaede adored to the ends of the earth: his soft voice, the way his long eyelashes caught the sun when he sat in that desk next to the window, the slight hesitation in his movements and the pink nipping at his cheeks whenever he was about to say something sweet to her, and more. She could go on and on.  
  
She and Shuichi were all but inseparable. They sat next to each other in class whenever possible, ate lunch together, walked home side by side, and paired up together for group projects whenever their teachers gave them the choice. On weekends, they would often go see a movie, carrying their matching sodas into the theater with a big bucket of popcorn to share. If there wasn't anything interesting playing on the silver screen, they were content with watching older movies out of the stockpile Kaede's parents kept in their living room. There was almost nothing that she didn't want to do with Shuichi.  
  
Almost.  
  
It turned out that whether it was out of anxiety, fear, or plain old nervousness, she just...  
  
...couldn't bring herself to kiss him.  
  
The first time she realized this, they were watching fireworks. Shuichi was in a navy yukata, looking quite striking against the smoky night sky, his figure lit around the edges by the remnant glow of the last silver spray that had bloomed above them. He had turned around to face her, his golden eyes shining with joy and love. It was the perfect moment. He leaned towards her, and...  
  
Kaede's head scrunched backwards automatically, her lips curling into an awkward smile that was anything but attractive. "Oh, sorry," she managed after a moment, laughing and scratching the back of her head. "Were you going to...?"  
  
"A-ah, no, it's fine! It's fine," Shuichi reassured her, although the embarrassed hue of red overtaking his face hinted that he might have needed more reassuring than she did. "I wasn't going to do anything. Hahaha..."  
  
She was lucky to have such a kind and understanding boyfriend, someone who made room for her hesitance even as she struggled with it. Kaede could tell that he was confused by it; she was forthright and confident in everyday life, and had even been the more active one in their relationship, scheduling dates and excursions and all sorts of activities for the two of them to do together. But anything past holding hands...  
  
Months passed, and her relationship with Shuichi progressed to the point where it was weird that they hadn't kissed yet. Shuichi never brought it up, as he wasn't the type to initiate anything and didn't want to make her uncomfortable, and Kaede settled into a pattern of promising that she'd try it but never going through with it. The abstract idea of a kiss was wonderful, something that made her light up pink while brushing her hair in the morning, but the picture of her own mouth and Shuichi's mouth close together was...just alright. If she really had to. Maybe on a good day.  
  
Kaede began to wonder if things were falling apart for her. Her biggest dream was to become a famous pianist and tour the world someday, but on the side, she couldn't deny that she wanted a family. She had thought about it since she was little; she'd marry a sweet boy who would grow up to be a good father and they'd have two kids together. She saw it all in her mind's eye, the picnics they'd have, the bedroom they'd share, and how happy she would be waking up each morning to two wonderful children and a loving husband. All that was slipping out of her hands, a distant dream that had once seemed close enough to touch with her fingertips.  
  
She couldn't kiss him.  
  
It was only fitting that Shuichi was an aspiring detective. The summer before they both departed for college, he deduced that everything they had done together was more like what two close friends would do. Kaede swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. He was right. She promised him that they would stay friends, thanked him for these past few years, and broke up with him. The moment she did, a weight lifted off her shoulders, even as tears streamed down both her face and his. She was uncertain what the future held, but she knew for a fact that she was going to miss walking home every day with her best friend in the sunny stillness of mid afternoon.  
  
*  
  
It wasn't because she didn't love Rantaro. What they had together wasn't very serious, but she couldn't help finding new things she loved about him every day. She listened with rapt fascination as he recounted his travels all over the world, laughed heartily when he told fond stories about his thirteen sisters and the havoc they wreaked around the house, and took his advice on all things fashion to heart.  
  
It was because of their closeness that Kaede's first year of college was an experience she'd remember for the rest of her life. It could easily have been bad; she was far from home, away from everyone she knew and loved, and dealing with classes that were much more challenging than anything in high school. But she had hit it off immediately with the right group of people, who supported her through the trials of being in a confusing place at a confusing time in her life.  
  
They also introduced her to all kinds of fun that she had never known as a rather sheltered piano geek living in the suburbs. Her parents were wonderful, but they had been so protective of her that she and Shuichi had not been able to venture beyond the local mall, even when she got her driver's license. Kaede knew that her mother would likely faint if she caught her daughter at one of Rantaro's crazy parties, and felt a twinge of guilt for keeping her activities a secret from the woman who had raised her, but she was an adult now. If she wanted to get roaring drunk in an expensive apartment filled with artifacts from around the world and sweaty college students, it was her own choice to make.  
  
Besides, these parties were nowhere near as scary as Kaede's mother likely envisioned them to be. The school that Kaede went to was a friendly place, full of educated people who had a good grasp on human decency. Any creepers who made it onto the premises were also the type to keep their distance when they heard that she was Rantaro's girlfriend.  
  
Rantaro's girlfriend...was that really who she was? Occasionally, she would find herself tipsy, sitting on the edge of her boyfriend's bed as the festivities raged on outside the locked door. He was surprisingly perceptive of her limits and knew when she needed some quiet time, and she appreciated that more than anything. His arm around her shoulder made her feel safe and secure.  
  
But the one time he brushed a finger over her lip and looked at her with those sea green eyes of his, she felt like a nervous sixteen year old again, and not in the way someone ought to expect when alone with their boyfriend. It was that same feeling, the same uneasiness that she had felt back when Shuichi had tried to kiss her.  
  
She was more than relieved when Rantaro noticed her discomfort and simply removed his hand from her face, leaning back on the bed. A moment or two later, he switched on the TV, and the two of them spent the rest of the next few hours poking fun at the tepid reality shows that were playing this late in the night. She eventually passed out in his bed after waving the last few partygoers goodbye at four in the morning, but the question still lingered on her mind as she sank into a deep sleep: why couldn't she kiss her boyfriend?  
  
Kaede gained the first inkling as to what the answer might be a week or so later, when Rantaro decided to apply makeup for a concert they were attending as a couple. He stepped out of the washroom with his lips painted pink, smoky eyeshadow and dark mascara accentuating his pretty eyes. Kaede stood there staring at him for a solid minute, sorting through the feelings in her chest, before she gave him the best feedback she could come up with in that state.  
  
"Damn, you look hot!" she said, pumping her fists animatedly. She had no idea what such a gesture meant in this context, and apparently neither did Rantaro.  
  
"Thanks," said Rantaro, one of his eyebrows raised with befuddled amusement. "You know, I think that might be the first time I've heard that from you."  
  
Kaede watched as his expression morphed from a confused smile to something signifying that he'd just had an epiphany to a different smile that had to mean that he knew something she didn't. She lowered her arms, frowning, about to ask him what he had just realized, but he was already busy gluing on a pair of false lashes.  
  
The concert was loud and full of people, and Rantaro looked perfectly at home. Kaede guessed that he had to develop a taste for these kinds of situations after living with thirteen sisters for most of his life. Beside him, she shouted the chorus at the top of her lungs when the performers onstage pointed their microphones towards the crowd, bouncing to a heavy beat that thumped in her bones. She could barely see him in the darkness of the outside venue; all she could catch were glimpses of his face lit up by a colored spotlight passing over him for tenths of a second.  
  
Strangely enough, he was more attractive than he had ever been, that night at the concert. Kaede found herself stealing glances at him, distracted from the music. That had never happened before. It was as if she had unlocked a secret part of their relationship, a part that only appeared when the stars aligned just right and the moving strobe lights swept over him at a certain angle. For a moment, she swore that she could even...  
  
...  
  
The event was over before she knew it. They drove home in relative silence. The car radio was turned down, and they were too pleasantly tired to say much to each other. Once again, they shuffled into Rantaro's apartment, cleaned up, and got into the same bed, like couples did.  
  
She woke up earlier than him. In the morning light, she gazed down upon his sleeping form, remembering the way her eyes were so drawn to him last night. Remembering how, for one brief moment, she had felt the need to kiss his glossy pink lips. Without that feeling, she was incomplete; once she had known that she could feel that way, she knew that that tightness in her chest was what all those romance novels she'd read in eighth grade had been talking about. That was the way a girlfriend should love her boyfriend.  
  
But it was clear to her now that the magic of last night had worn off. Rantaro had washed off his makeup; his face was bare, bathed in daylight. Kaede felt a deep sorrow encroach upon her peaceful morning. She knew that he was handsome. She had heard others praise his good looks, and she could see them for herself with her eyes. So why...?  
  
Sorrow turned into frustration as she continued to stare at him, adjusting her angle and squinting so that maybe his eyelashes would look a little darker. She loved him. All the evidence was sitting there inside her, all the fond memories they'd made together, all the ways she knew that he was a wonderful person and the few daydreams where she had happily envisioned him putting a ring on her finger, even though she was quite sure that this fling wouldn't survive her college career.  
  
Nothing. Kaede felt nothing. Every logical part of her was screaming at her, bashing flint and steel next to the sodden straw of her heart that wouldn't catch fire no matter what. Rantaro's handsome face was not a face that she wanted to kiss. Rantaro was not someone she could wake up in bed with every day, nor was he someone she could picture herself raising two lovely children with. The thought of greeting each day with this hollow feeling in her chest made her begin to dread the future.  
  
She was so distraught that she climbed out of bed, got dressed, and rushed off to her dormitory without even leaving him a text.  
  
Rantaro took her to cheer on the women's basketball team later that week. He had asked her if she wanted to go while wearing that same knowing smile, the one that had appeared the evening before the concert. Kaede would have already accepted in the first place, but that smile made her all the more curious why he would invite her to a sporting event when he knew that her passion lay in music.  
  
Obviously, Kaede didn't consider herself a sports person. She had no idea what was going on. She based most of her reactions off of the crowd around her; when they cheered, she cheered, and when they sat still, she would just observe, elbows on her knees as she followed the players with eyes that didn't understand. She started to pick out individual people on her school's team: the short girl who had to run faster than the others to make up for her height, the one with bleached tips, and the brunette who played so aggressively she was sure that the other team was afraid to go anywhere near her.  
  
She forgot that Rantaro was sitting by her, hearing only the squeak of sneakers on the gym floor and the harsh thudding of the basketball as that brunette dribbled it out of everyone else's reach. There was something so admirable about that girl, Kaede thought. There was something about how she moved, as gracefully as a cheetah through the tall grasses of the savannah, about how her dark hair strained against the headband she had packed it behind, about the fierce look in her eyes as she slammed the ball through the hoop at last.  
  
Kaede was still staring when the match ended. The brunette, flushed from the intensity of the game, was high fiving her teammates. Her chest rose and fell, her jersey hanging off of her muscular shoulders, its straps pushed towards her neck each time she raised her hand for another high five. Kaede found it strange and a little intriguing that all of the other girls were hugging each other except for the one who had won the game for her team. She traced that girl with her gaze until she couldn't anymore, following her until she disappeared behind the bleachers on the other side of the arena.  
  
"Did you enjoy the game, Akamatsu-san?" Kaede jumped, remembering that her boyfriend was right there next to her. She grinned sheepishly, scooting closer to him on the metal bench.  
  
"I actually did!" she said cheerfully, looking back over at the now empty court. If she let her mind wander, she could still see that girl, her strong figure paused mid leap in front of the hoop.  
  
Kaede was too lost in thought to see, but Rantaro was smiling again, secure in his assumption.  
  
Although the two of them remained close, the romantic parts of their relationship petered out over the next semester. There was no breakup, no tears; it seemed that they both foresaw the end and were content with it, walking towards it hand in hand. When Kaede accidentally called him her 'friend' one day, it was someone else who had to point out the lack of the 'boy' prefix before either she or Rantaro knew what had happened. They shared a laugh and moved on.  
  
*  
  
It wasn't because she didn't love Kaito. Far from it. While Kaito didn't have the same delicate sense for when something was on her mind like Shuichi and Rantaro did, he didn't really need it. This was because his mind worked the same way Kaede's did. Never before had Kaede seen her own stubborn determination and terminal friendliness reflected back at her so clearly, or her sudden whims for ice cream or a hiking trip or a night at the city symphony in the middle of finals week accepted so easily.  
  
Surprisingly, he wasn't all too fond of alcohol, which explained why Kaede hadn't come to know him through those wild parties. She had instead met him through a camping trip organized by the travel club, whose meetings she had attended infrequently with Rantaro. A long talk at night underneath the stars led to study sessions together, which led to coffee dates and walks in the local park. Rantaro hadn't seemed too pleased when they made it official, but he said that he'd trust Kaede's judgment. Kaede had a feeling that his reluctance had nothing to do with the fact that he had previously dated her.  
  
To tell the truth, she herself was at least a little bit uneasy about entering another relationship so soon. Her confidence that she could be part of a lasting romance had been waning since that first time with Shuichi, and after her fruitless attempts to really fall for Rantaro, she doubted this would be any different. Already, she constantly noticed how Kaito's features were rougher than Rantaro's, that no amount of squinting at him or looking at him sideways could make her heart pound in her chest like it was supposed to. But it was okay. She and Kaito were birds of a feather; if she had to pretend to have those feelings for him, she could do that. He had the same kind of confidence and self reliance that she would like to see in her children someday. Someday, when she would have a nice family and live in a cute house with flowers on the windowsills.  
  
Kaede was tired.  
  
Kaito put a lot of emphasis on bettering his body. The school fitness center was his second home; more often than not, Kaede would find him there, doing a bench press or warming up on the track. Sometimes, he'd fancy a late night workout after the gym had already closed, and he'd wander out to one of the many grassy fields on campus to sprint and do pushups.  
  
And sometimes,  
  
he would be there  
  
with that girl from the basketball team.  
  
Kaede didn't have a way to explain it. She wasn't even sure what 'it' was. Part of it was the fact that she didn't like that girl being alone with Kaito, but to say that that was the only thing bothering her about the situation would be wrong. Sometimes, she felt as if she wanted to corner Kaito and ask him if he secretly liked that girl. Other times, she wanted to corner that girl and ask her if she had feelings for Kaito. Other times still, she was absolutely sure that she wouldn't have to ask either of them because she already knew Kaito's answer: that girl was just a friend. A training partner, and nothing more.  
  
Kaede had never been cheated on. She trusted Kaito enough to believe that he wouldn't change that, so what was this feeling?  
  
Being the kind of person she was, she couldn't sit still and mill over it like Shuichi might have done in her shoes. She dealt with it like she dealt with anything else: she rolled up her sleeves and marched to the grassy hill she knew was Kaito's favorite training spot, making her way up the incline until she spotted the spiky tip of his purple hair.  
  
"Hey!" she called, waving a hand. "Room for one more?"  
  
"Kaede!" Kaito greeted her, waving in return. The smile on his face was surprised at first, then joyful, welcoming. It was not the smile of someone who was hiding something. "Are you joining us, then?"  
  
Only the girl clutching her water bottle beside him in the grass looked like she had an objection to voice. It occurred to Kaede that she had never seen this girl's face clearly before, and the faint lighting from the university's student union didn't do much to help. But still, it was better than the faint blur she had caught the first time at that basketball game, seated in the bleachers, watching her from up above. The girl's nose was a different shape than Kaede had expected it to be, and her eyebrows were darker and thicker than they had appeared from afar. Kaede couldn't tell what colour her eyes were in this lighting, and she wasn't quite sure why she wanted to know.  
  
"Oh, that's Harumaki," Kaito said, anticipating her question. Birds of a feather. Kaede made herself look at him, but she already knew what he looked like in every different kind of lighting. "Me and her work out together. She's cool."  
  
"Could you not introduce me like that?"  
  
Without knowing it, Kaede had come to expect that girl to have a certain voice. It wasn't quite the same as she had pictured in her head; it could never be, as all things could never be the way they were inside her head, but it was surprisingly close.  
  
The girl straightened herself out and continued, ignoring Kaito playfully pushing her shoulder. "Harukawa Maki. Third year." She held out her hand. "Nice to meet you," she added, as an afterthought.  
  
Kaede took her hand. It was warm, soft with sweat and the condensation on her water bottle, yet rougher than her own. She gave it a firm shake. "Nice to meet you too! I'm—"  
  
"Akamatsu." Maki let go of her hand all too soon. "I've heard of you. This idiot won't stop talking about you." Kaede followed the jut of Maki's thumb over to Kaito, who flashed her a winning smile.  
  
How sweet.  
  
"Hey, I can't help it. Asking a guy not to brag about his amazing girlfriend is like asking him not to drink clean water." That statement made Kaede laugh, not out of bashfulness, because she wasn't that type of girl, but out of earnest amusement at how it was something only Kaito would say. Such a statement was not romantic, but familiar. Kaede didn't like thinking about that.  
  
"Well, in any case, I've heard good things about you too, Harukawa-san!" These words slipped out of her mouth before she could replace them with words about Kaito. Maki's shadowy figure shifted in the grass, and Kaede could just barely make out an expression of surprise on her face. Kaede became aware that she desperately wanted Maki to approve of her. Among many other things, though, that would be weird to say out loud, so she settled for something else. "I think that's enough chattering. What do you guys say to a few warmup laps around the quad?"  
  
After Kaede's second lap, Maki was on her third, Kaito lagging behind her by a few yards. From her position in the group, Kaede could almost always sneak a peek to her left and spot Maki's dark ponytail whipping out of sight as she ran past another streetlight. It was that night that Kaede understood that it was not Kaito she was concerned about; it was she herself who had an unfaithful heart.  
  
*  
  
It was because she loved Maki.  
  
She loved seeing Maki. She loved hearing Maki. It was as if Kaede's senses had all rearranged themselves to detect the other girl whenever possible, so much that she began to do stupid things like wave to Maki from the other side of the quad when she spotted her passing through, one dark speck in a red t-shirt that she had somehow singled out from the massive throng of students traveling alongside her on the way to their next class.  
  
Maki never waved back. She would always duck her head as if disappearing underwater, and vanish behind a bunch of other people. It was the first time Kaede had come into contact with someone so...unfriendly.  
  
The only time Maki acted familiar with someone, open enough for her stoic face to crack into a smile now and then, was when she was with Kaito. It wasn't too hard to see why. Kaito's persistence in courting her friendship, his unwavering support of her despite her natural reclusiveness, would cause even the iciest exterior to melt. Kaede eventually learned that it was he who had convinced her to join the basketball team in the first place. Hearing that made her uneasy, but she was sure that if she dug further into why it upset her, she would become very unhappy. So she didn't.  
  
Mistakenly, Kaede thought that if she acted like Kaito enough and hung around the two of them enough, Maki would eventually open up to her as well.  
  
She wished that she could be spared the dark look in Maki's glaring eyes whenever she showed up to training sessions unannounced. She considered herself a strong person, but a gaze like that was an unfair weapon. Most times, Kaede would arrive after those two had finished running their initial laps, and Maki would be wiping sweat off of her forehead, her bangs disheveled and sticking to her skin. She was beautiful. She was beautiful when she allowed Kaito a slight smile, when she tipped her bottle back to take in a ravenous gulp of cool water, when she licked her chapped lips and said that the weather kept getting hotter every day.  
  
And she was beautiful when she spotted Kaede coming up the hill and scowled.  
  
Kaede understood. She wasn't an idiot.  
  
As the days passed, it became more and more painful for her to go to training sessions. Somehow, the butterflies in her stomach when she saw Maki were not strong enough to lift her heavy spirits when Maki looked at her that way. There were no words that could harm her as much as that gaze. Her attendance dwindled from showing up at every other session, to every third one, to anytime Kaito asked her if she wanted to come, and then not at all.  
  
Maybe she should have continued to go to them, because whenever she spotted Kaito entering their shared apartment in a shirt transparent with sweat and grass stained shorts, all she could think of was to ask him how Maki was doing. Maki was always doing alright. She was doing fine, came late today because of a lousy coworker not working their shift, came early today because the weather had been really hot recently and the forecast said it would be a little cooler during these few hours and not because she really enjoyed these sessions or anything, but yeah, she was doing okay.  
  
Maybe if Kaito talked about Maki enough, Kaede would fall in love with him by proxy. That was a funny thought.  
  
"You really took a shine to Harumaki, huh?" Kaito asked one afternoon, while raiding the fridge for a cold drink.  
  
Kaede was at the dining table with her laptop out, doing her economics homework for show. She didn't understand any of the notes that she had copied down in the past five minutes. "Yep!" she said, making another bullet point with her gel pen. "She has kind of a mysterious, alluring aura to her, don't you think?"  
  
Kaito stood up with a can of seltzer, holding the fridge door open with the side of his arm to cool down. "Y'know, I'd ask where that came from, but I have to agree."  
  
Kaede laughed at that, but she was quite afraid that things would become even more complicated than they already were if she continued that discussion, so she began to talk about the weather instead.  
  
Sometimes, Kaede resented Maki for falling in love with someone so close to her, someone who had so much in common with her, but wasn't her. Resentment was an ugly feeling, and it made her do ugly things. She would take Kaito out on extra dates. She'd pay for his meals, ambush him with cute nicknames out of nowhere, lean her head on his shoulder and hug his arm tight to her body while watching a movie just because those were things that Maki could not do. On particularly bad days, Kaede even let herself imagine Maki watching her with her boyfriend, those deep red eyes downcast with heartbreak. But that sadistic satisfaction only lasted for a few seconds before her imagination would bloom with soppy fantasies of comforting Maki and stealing her affections through those kind words, never mind the logical fault that she herself, even in this fantasy, had caused that pain in the first place.  
  
Ugly, ugly, ugly. Those were the actions of someone who had fallen to the ground and lost sight of what she stood for. Those actions were beneath someone like Kaede Akamatsu, who was always the type of girl who would pick herself up, dust herself off, and make friends with her enemies.  
  
At the very least, she wanted to be Maki's friend.  
  
At the very least, she wanted Maki to forgive her for being an ugly person.  
  
Kaede thought about her happy marriage to an imaginary husband and the two kids they would have together. She thought about their house, the flowers on the windowsills, the picnics and the amusement park visits and the first days of school. She thought about Shuichi, who loved her, who was surely moving forward in his career by now, who would have surely made a wonderful, caring father. She thought about Rantaro, who loved her, who was as popular and sociable as ever, who was basically already a father to his family of sisters. She thought about Kaito, who loved her, who was her mirror image, who would teach his children strength and compassion and courage.  
  
Kaede thought about Maki.  
  
She thought about Maki, who she loved.  
  
Who didn't love her.  
  
Who she didn't know, beyond the image of her athletic form cutting through the air resistance, the image of her somber, dark eyes watching from afar as if she was waiting to strike. Or was she afraid somebody would strike her?  
  
She didn't know what kind of lesson Maki would impart on her children, nor what kind of parent she would be. But the thought of Maki sitting across from her at a little dining table, sipping a cup of coffee in the morning, half-awake as she tousled their daughter's hair in greeting with that small, private smile on her face, was enough to make Kaede's heart burst into flames.  
  
It was only then that she knew how hellish love could be.  



End file.
